As the Brisbane Organising Committee looks to firm up venues ahead of the 2032 Olympics, a dozen or so of the world’s top timber engineers today toured the Eric Tweedale Stadium—Australia’s first stadium built out of glulam timber. Located in Merrylands—3km southwest of Parramatta—the stadium is considered a milestone for Australia’s timber engineering, an important step that has led to schemes like Macquarie Point – the world’s largest stadium to use glulam in its roof structure.
Featuring a cantilever spanning 8.5 metres over the spectator seating, 13.7-metre beams spanning the multipurpose area, and a double cantilevered roof frame at each end of the roof structure, 26 glulam columns support the roof of the dwp-designed stadium, which in 2021 was awarded the top prize at the Australian Timber Design Awards.
Part of the warm-up act to the World Conference on Timber Engineering (WCTE), which kicks off in Brisbane on Sunday, the engineers—including delegates from faraway Scotland and Switzerland—also toured Macquarie University’s Incubator, the new Michael Kirby (Law) Building, International House / Daramu House in Barangaroo—winner of the 2018 World Architecture Festival Certified Timber Prize—and the Meyer Timber Shed in Penrith.
Brisbane Olympics can lead the world with timber, but it needs smarter design.
Leading up to WCTE 2025 – the first to be held in Australia – Wood Central spoke to Professor Keith Crews, conference chairman and director of the Australian Research Council’s Research Hub to Advance Timber for Australia’s Future Built Environment – who urged Brisbane 2032 organisers to be strategic with the use of cross-laminated and frame timber, not just in the stadiums but in the legacy building infrastructure.
“Let’s think about this as buildings that are going to be there for 50 years, not five years now; in the past, it’s often just been the stadiums that people think about, not the ancillary buildings or the support buildings, which, incidentally, would use significantly more amounts of timber than if we just built a stadium,” Professor Crews told Wood Central. “For example, small buildings – used as meeting rooms for the Olympics – could be turned into community centres or libraries after the games. All of these things are possible with cross-laminated timber and timber framing, but it requires clever design and design detailing.”
Please note: Wood Central will have exclusive coverage and interviews with key delegates from WCTE 2025 all next week.
